firewalking

What is astrology? I think of it as an attempt to look for patterns in the universe, and apply them to your own life. People chart the stars, and link them to the animals or the elements, anthropomorphize them, give those animals or elements human traits, then link them back to us. So, let’s say, that constellation looks like a lion, lions are proud and commanding, someone born under that sign has been influenced by that constellation, and that is how they will be.

But how could every single person born under say Scorpio all act the same way? Personally, astrology is a fun game for me, not a superstition. Everyone is different, shaped by their environment, their genetics, their circumstances. So, you can choose to let your astrological symbol suggest a possible path to you, a way for you to act that is fitting for what your strengths could be. It’s as ok a system for “how to act” as any. But your path is still your own to navigate, it isn’t predetermined. Your options may be limited, but it isn’t all worked out already.

“Yeah so, what the hell does this have to do with your workout?”

Be patient, grasshopper.

you have much to learn

All my life astrology keeps telling me I am fire. Western astrology, Eastern astrology, fire fire fire. Your primary animal is a fire element, your secondary is a fire element, you were born on a hot afternoon in the middle of summer, fire! At the start of the week, I was having lunch with a girl (a pretty cute girl, I might add!) and she was talking to me about “doshas”. Think of doshas as Hindu medicine with an astrological/elemental twist. You are fire, water, air, varying degrees. So I go take the online quiz… guess what I am? FIRE

Even when I was a kid, they wouldn’t let me donate blood, they said it was too warm… but I digress.

Today I started a new pre-workout, NO3 Chrome. They are pills and I am taking them with the N0 Extreme pwo powder. NO3 is the Arginine, to give you a pump, but is otherwise stim free and creatine free. N0 Extreme has stims, but is creatine free. I cycled off stims pwo’s for 2 weeks, and am now ready for them again. I am taking creatine on my own (mono). So, why not buy the C4 and get pwo and creatine together? Well I am trying the N0 Extreme, and if I like, I can cycle onto it when I cycle off creatine but still want stims.

All that to say, I was trying some new stuff to get me going for my workouts. To bring some fire to my routine.

NO3 Chrome

N0 Extreme

This was my first day, first workout taking it! I took 3 pills of the Chrome, and 1 scoop of the powder, about 60 min before the workout. On with the show!

notes: I don’t think I felt an arginine pump, but I am a big guy with a high tolerance, so I will give it some time to kick in as I keep taking it. However, I felt great focus and some good energy right at the start. And did I mention I was sweating bullets?? The one leg squats felt strong right off the start, good initial burst of energy. My reps blew my old reps out of the water.

Leg presses were pretty intense. I didn’t realize how much they tuckered me out until I went to do leg curls. My right hamstring is what gave out first. Overall I was disappointed with my leg curls, my goal was 50 reps, I only did close to 40.

Note that under this system, I do NOT go to failure. I go until I feel like I am about to fail, sometimes I also fail spontaneously. But some people like to keep going until they flat out fail hard. I don’t do that because it is hard on your joints. If you are in your 20s, you can do it if you like. But once you hit your 30s, the injuries start popping up, and you realize you need to take care of your joints. So I go until I feel like I will fail on the next one, like my control is gone.

After the leg curl failure, my back felt quite sore. From what, I do not know. So I decided to cut the volume off at that, and do some stretches before the cardio. I did 10 minutes of my favorite yoga back stretches or restorative poses: waterfall, supine butterfly, cobblers pose, seal pose. I didn’t hold them as long as I would in Yin, but they still felt really good.

waterfall

supine butterfly

Then it was time for more cardio! Again, the N0 Extreme was still raring to go! I did 20 minutes of heart pumping cardio. Even though my legs felt like lead, my brain was growling, “MORE”. So I burnt a hole through that one.

And as I was sweating like crazy and emptying my tank all over the arc trainer, my mind went back to fire. I was born under a fire sign. Maybe the only way out for me on this whole losing weight and getting fit thing is to push myself through the burn, to dance into the fire and come out the other side.

ok maybe I don’t get a baby dragon out of it, but it was a pretty cool scene 🙂

I went home after the workout and collapsed. I am dead tired. But I wanted to type this up for you guys! Hope you enjoyed it!

By the way, speaking of fire and ice, one of my favorite movie moments as a child was the opening scene from “A View To A Kill”. That was the James Bond movie from 1985. Say what you will about the movie, but that title sequence was hot as balls! I think I went through puberty immediately from watching that sequence… I’m telling you, the girls in the glow in the dark skisuits? I still have dreams of women that glow in the dark doing cartwheels through the air on skis. Any woman who can recreate that scene will be the woman I MARRY.